Essential Graphic Basics Each Infographic Designer Should Know

Graphics are the core element in any Infographic. And depending on the quality of graphics Infographic becomes good or bad. Well, not all of us were great Maths students. But it shouldn’t be an obstacle for you not to go for Infographics. This article will briefly talk about types of graphs and help you choose the right one for the data you are using in your Infographic. Because there is no unimportant details!

Obviously you should be creative and there is no point of using standard Excel graphs. But if you use pie diagram for year-to-year comparison or line graph for showing percentage out of 100%… Well, it is not at all creativity but a wrong way of presenting the data. So what graphs go with what data? Let’s go one by one.

Pie Chart (Circle Graph)

As it may come clear from the name of the category, a pie chart displays qualitative data in the form of a pie / circle. The whole circle represents 100% and each slice of the pie represents a different category and the respective percentage. This way it is very easy to compare different categories with each other.

Creative Pie Chart:

Who said that pie chart should be just a simple circle divided into sectors? There are many other creative ways of presenting the same.

– 3D pie chart

– Dividing an object into sectors representing percentages

Bar Graph

A bar graph contains a bar for each category of a set of qualitative data. Bar graphs can be vertical or horizontal. Its layout depends on the data set. For example, year-to-year data would be better to present as a vertical bar graph.

In contrary, if you have asked something like “What are the most important factors of business growth?” and your respondents could give several answers, this set of data would be better presented as a horizontal bar graph. In that case, bars are usually arranged in order of frequency, so that more important categories are emphasized, i.e. are at the top.

Creative Bar Graph:

You have a lot of opportunities to make your bar graph look creative, for example:

– Icons instead of simple bars

Line (Time-Series) Graph

A time-series graph displays data at different points in time, so it is another kind of graph to be used for certain kinds of paired data. Normally, the horizontal axis shows the time and the vertical axis is for the data values. This kind of graphs are perfect to be used to show trends over time.

Creative Line Graph:

Even though this type of graphs gives little chances to make it look different, you can still apply your creativity and make it look if not too much different but at least much more visually appealing, for example:

– 3D

– use area chart (or 3D area chart)

Some Tips for Designing Correct Graphs:

– Keep it simple and avoid flashy special effects.

Present only essential information. If the data is already too complex, avoid using elements that make your graph even more complex, for example 3D, complex illustrations within the graph, etc. Otherwise, your graph will not clearly communicate the important points and Infographic will become beautiful, but unclear, thus useless.

– Title your graph or chart clearly to convey the purpose.

The title of the graph provides the reader with the overall message you are conveying. That’s why it is important to specify the units of measurement on the x-and y-axis.

– Label each part of the chart or graph.

You may need a legend if there is too much information to label each part of the chart or graph. Use different colors or variations in patterns to help the reader distinguish categories and understand your graph or chart.

These are the main types of graphs that are usually used in Infographics. Based on our guidelines it is much easier now to create a right, nice looking graph that will make your Infographic look really awesome. Good luck and feel free to share your thoughts and experience in the comments below 🙂